Paywalls | Amid Arianna's doubts, GCI innovates

The New York Times floats the notion today that publishers are drawing closer to charging for online content, a 180-degree turn from a nearly 15-year-old practice that's proved disastrous for the industry. "Indeed," report the NYT's Richard Perez-Pena and Tim Arango, "in the next several weeks, industry executives and analysts expect some publications to take the plunge."

Yet, their story cites only a few examples, and none of them involve Gannett sites. Perhaps individual GCI newspapers and other outlets are being encouraged to experiment locally. Only yesterday, for instance, the Tallahassee Democrat published in print special coverage about a retiring football coach. Online, however, readers were given just a taste, then directed to buy the paper's electronic edition for $1.50.

Whatever the industry-wide outcome, skeptics abound on whether publishers are serious about making the switch. Blogger Alan Mutter told the NYT: "We’re looking at some sort of an inflection point, at least in attitude. But I haven’t seen much realistic, hard-headed thinking about how that's going to happen, so I don’t know how much is really going to change." And Huffington Post co-founder Arianna Huffington (left) "predicted that much of the talk of media's mining the Web for new revenue would never become reality -- and that if it did, free sites like hers would benefit,'' the Times says.

What do you hear about for-pay products and firewalls at your site? Please post your replies in the comments section, below. To e-mail confidentially, write jimhopkins[at]gmail[dot-com]; see Tipsters Anonymous Policy in the rail, upper right.